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Aluminum Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 - Obsidian Black
Why use a heatsink and a case, when you can use a heatsink case?! This black, anodized aluminum case for the Raspberry Pi 4 will give you 10-15°C of passive cooling under a full CPU load. This case is great for situations where you want completely silent cooling, like home media centers.
It comes with a thermal pad to provide thermal contact between the CPU and top case, and a handy Allen Key and set of hex bolts to attach the case together.
The case gives you access to all of the ports, pins, and connectors. You can just about get away with using low-profile HATs and pHATs (those without bulky components on the underside) using one of our tall headers, but be extremely careful not to short any components on the metal top case!
- Anodized Aluminum Enclosure
- Hex Bolts
- Allen Key
- Thermal Tape
- Anodized Aluminum top and bottom case in Black
- Heatsink fins
- Thermal pad
- Hex bolts and Allen Key included
- Access to all ports, pins, and connectors
- Compatible with Raspberry Pi 4
Aluminum Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 - Obsidian Black Product Help and Resources
Raspberry Pi 4 Kit Hookup Guide
March 14, 2020
Guide for hooking up your Raspberry Pi 4 Model B basic, desktop, or hardware starter kit together.
Core Skill: DIY
Whether it's for assembling a kit, hacking an enclosure, or creating your own parts; the DIY skill is all about knowing how to use tools and the techniques associated with them.
Skill Level: Noob - Basic assembly is required. You may need to provide your own basic tools like a screwdriver, hammer or scissors. Power tools or custom parts are not required. Instructions will be included and easy to follow. Sewing may be required, but only with included patterns.
See all skill levels
Comments
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Customer Reviews
3.9 out of 5
Based on 7 ratings:
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Overall solid case, with only one minor drawback
Case works well. Dissipates heat effectively. Thermal pads work well in conducting heat away far as I can tell. Much better then pretty much all of the other cases I've seen; the case/heatsink combo works quite well.
Only downside is mentioned in the info - underside of HATs can short to the case and you lose access to the screw holes on the Pi if your HAT had standoff's to mount it securely. It would be nice if they drilled holes out on the top side of the heatsink/case here, but it's really a minor detail. For now, I just stuck a small piece of cardboard in between the two to prevent shorting until I think of something better.
On installations where I'm not using a HAT, I might take an old IDE or floppy drive cable and cut off the ribbon cable, leaving the empty header and put it on the GPIO pins, just so they aren't exposed to ESD when handling. All of the other traces/pins/etc are covered with the case.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Great idea, but
I was TOTALLY unable to peel the paper backing off of any of the heat sink material, and it wound up crumbling in my fingers. Now all I have left is basically a paperweight. You guys really need to come up with a better heat sink material.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great little case if . . .
If you need to use your display header, be advised once assembled it cannot be opened. The camera ribbon, while technically accessible, is practically the same. Also, the thermal material shreds when you so much as look at it, and is basically impossible to apply.
Also, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to mount this to anything without drill and tap work.
Otherwise, I love it. A slab of finned aluminum. What else did I expect?
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Works like a charm after a little surgery
The case as received did not allow the video cable to be inserted into the connector on the Pi 4. The aluminum cross bar had to be cut out and both fins on the left and right off the connection had to be notched out also. With the addition of a 5 V. 2" sq. fan mounted on the top and a silicon rectifier diode in series in a power lead to lower the operating voltage the whole assembly is almost whisper quiet and only 6 deg. above ambient temp. !! I can supply a photo of the surgery result in required.
was a gift
My son told me what to order and I ordered this. He says it does exactly what it said it would.
Mounting
After the pi is installed and everything plugged in how is one suppose to mount this to anything? Zip ties? Maybe let it dangle from a thread?
Great case
Well made, sinks heat from the chips, looks slick.
Do WiFi and Bluetooth work when using this metal case?
I haven't had issues, but my WiFi router and keyboard are practically next to the Pi (Router: < 10' and Keyboard: < 1'). At greater distances, you may notice changes in signal propagation due to the metal enclosure (i.e. the signal strength may peak and dip in different areas compared to without the case/heat sink).
After installing the PRT-15773 aluminum case on the Pi 4 and mounting everything on the back of the 7 " LCD display I found that the display ribbon cable would not fit into the MIPI DSI display connector because a part of the casting, a thin aluminum bar' was right on top of the compression fitting and it wouldn't allow it to be raised to accept the cable. I had to take everything apart to get the top cover off. Using a small die grinder I removed enough product to get the ribbon cable to clamp down in the display connector. Your product fits good, does a good job of cooling with the help of a small 5v. axial fan, BUT, to get to that point was very frustrating.
Great feedback for other users. Unfortunately, we didn't make the assembly guide. My guess is that the design was intended for the ribbon cable to be attached to the connector on the Pi 4 first, and then fed through the slot, before the case is fully assembled. I don't have one lying around to confirm, but that would be my "throws out the instruction manual" intuition.